As Liv interns at FASD United, she will share what she is learning and doing to inspire and explore FASD awareness through a public health lens. In her time with our organization, she will have opportunities to experience the roundedness of our programs, aid in important projects, and explore her understanding through reflection.

“This week was another exciting week at FASD United. Unfortunately, I felt sick this week and am still a little under the weather, but I hope to be back at the office next week!

My main focus for this week was continuing to work on the outreach project. The hardest part of this project was contacting organizations and businesses on the phone. I feel confident when it comes to communicating with individuals over email or text, but I have not had much experience talking to people over the phone. The scariest part of talking over the phone is that it can be unpredictable what the individual is going to say next. With an email, you can take time to respond and ensure it’s perfect, but you need a pretty immediate response over the phone. At my old internship, I had to talk on the phone a lot to other organizations we worked with, so I’ve had some practice. However, I didn’t feel confident going into it, but I was excited to challenge myself in the workplace.

One of the phone calls that I did this week was super short. The hardest thing about calling big organizations is that you often don’t get to speak to a specific person who would know the most information. It is a little bit harder to communicate over the phone and ask for specific people because the other individual on the line could just hang up. However, I had some conversations that went really well, and I’m confident about what I was able to achieve during the phone call. My heart was racing pretty fast before I dialed the number, but I felt completely fine once I was talking to someone. I feel that I got some great practice in, and I feel confident in my calling skills.

Another project that I worked on this week was looking over various bills that had been passed. One of the hardest things was definitely reading through all of the bills. It took me a while to get used to how certain bills were formatted and the language that was used. Some bills were super long; for example, I looked at one that was about 100 pages, and others were super short, such as 2 pages. It was interesting to comb through all of these bills and really dissect what they are advertising the bill is doing versus what the bill is actually going to achieve. It was really exciting to see how many bills surrounding FASD and alcohol consumption are in the process of being adopted. Most of these bills have really great ideas for how to increase advocacy surrounding FASD and the adverse effects of alcohol, as well as grant funding for programs that support FASD. I have about 99 bills to sort through, but I am very excited that so many bills can possibly help further FASD United’s mission!

I had a very great week regardless of my health status. I am excited to continue on both of these projects and to start hearing back from some of the organizations that I contacted. I am ready to be back in the office next week. Thanks so much for reading.”

Reflection from 3/25 to 3/292024